Your sitemap should only contain current pages you want indexed on Site A, not the pages that you're redirecting to Site B. It sounds like you have the right steps in place and that you will see your old links get removed over time.
Posts made by RyanPurkey
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RE: 301 redirects inside sitemaps
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RE: Toolset Q.) Re. Linkscape - How is the External Links (link juice) calculated in the API?
For external links a straight division of of PR by links per page isn't the best correlation to Google's ranking and PR system. Things like link location on page, number of links to the same site, anchor links, link text, nearby text, and more all play a part in calculating how much link juice to pass. The short answer, they don't exactly say. The long answer can be found on the pages referenced below, but you still won't get an exact number. The take away is that SEOmoz is constantly working to correlate their Linkscape produced data and rankings to Google's data and rankings.
References:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/determining-whether-a-page-site-passes-link-juice
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/pagerank-sculpting-parsing-the-value-and-potential-benefits-of-sculpting-pr-with-nofollow
http://apiwiki.seomoz.org/w/page/13991139/Juice-Passing
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/early-ranking-factors-data-an-april-linkscape-update
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/linkscapes-august-update-better-domain-authority-numbers-new-partners-and-more -
RE: What are the best/ your favourite brand pages?
If you want to go with more of a shopping cart sort of feel you could emphasize products carried within the brand and not really break away from general site navigation like:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Shop-by-Brand-Roxio/ci/4/N/4294255798/phd/4291243286
Tiger direct uses a brand splash image, common product categories, and then products as seen here:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/campaigns/campaigntemplate.asp?CampaignID=517
Walmart's brand shopping page is very splash heavy:
Dunno if I'm moving far afield of what you want to do with your site in general, but that should give you a few ideas to throw around. I came up with the BH Photo example from memory and the other two via a "Shop by brand" search in Google.
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RE: Unanswered Questions
It also would be nice to see a categorization feature by answer. For example, I recently answered a question regarding 301 redirection and www vs non-www (http://www.seomoz.org/q/hostname-report-in-google-analytics) where the bulk of my answer was pulled from the SEOmoz "learn-seo" section. That quoted answer could suffice for multiple questions so if someone has a nuanced situation they could scan through a block of questions that all have one answer and likely find what they need, sort of like a FAQ with links to all the questions that fall under that one answer. Or perhaps a wiki format with links to all the questions that it answers.
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RE: IPhone usage by Continent
My pleasure! If you decide to go through this exercise send me a PM as it'd be neat to see what kind of results you come up with. Also, now that you have a few other search terms to consider (Mobile OS, Mobile browser, etc.) you might be able to find an article or report that speaks more directly to your search.
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RE: On-Page Report Card, rel canonical
It's in the code so your developer would have to do it, from Google's Guide:
Can the link be relative or absolute?
The rel="canonical" attribute can be used with relative or absolute links, but we recommend using absolute links to minimize potential confusion or difficulties. If your document specifies a base link, any relative links will be relative to that base link.
http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=139394
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RE: On-Page Report Card, rel canonical
Trying making the absolute URL, i.e. "http://www.mysite.com/category/9-Irons" as your href instead of "/category/9-Irons" in the rel="canonical" link tag.
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RE: How Can I move a site higher in Google Places?
Google pulls reviews from across the web, not just Google accounts.
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RE: How Can I move a site higher in Google Places?
It sounds like if you're dealing with subtle tweaks and small details you'll need to get some insight into your specific situation, i.e. add your url and search terms to the discussion, or hire someone to hep with an audit.
To answer your question about subtle difference, yes, I've seen something as simple as being more centrally located within a specific area code give a better ranking in map results. This was a while ago though, and I think it's changed some, but it is an example of subtle difference. Of course this might not help your situation whatsoever.
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RE: Content Delivery Network
Paulo, you'll have to test the speed of your site yourself, but you can do so at a place like: http://www.uptrends.com/aspx/free-website-server-network-monitoring-tool.aspx
It will display results from other countries and cities from around the world and help you decide whether or not you need a cdn.
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RE: IPhone usage by Continent
Sean, the percentages are the Statistic divided by Country/Region. So if you select Mobile OS and Worldwide the 31.56% percentage for April 2011 on SymbianOS means 31.56% of the World's Mobile OS uses SymibainOS. If you switch Country/Region to the United States the percentage will indicate that area's usage for that Statistic. Remember though, it's only measuring Mobile OS in this instance so it's not a percentage total of all web surfing traffic, just mobile web surfers.
You'd have to reverse engineer this data and plug in some statistics form another location on specific device usage or purchases in order to get a guestimate on the number of iPhone users, by device, within your countries of interest.
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RE: Syndicating With Blogs
Hi Andre. Here are a few problems you might run into:
- Websites you don't own may outrank your money site -- Even though they're your accounts on other sites they are owned by their respective companies.
- Duplicate content penalties could delist much of your work.
- General dilution of your money site content.
A better practice would be to do a lead that has a portion of the content and then a "Read more..." or applicable anchor text link that points to your money site.
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RE: On-Page Report Card, rel canonical
Hi James. Lets say you have 15 pages that are the canonical pages and the 35 pages that are variations (alphabetically sorted, price sorted, whatnot). If those non-canonical 35 pages are being graded they're not going to have a rel=canonical that lines up because they're not the canonical page. The on page report card is only looking to match the URL you entered into the SEOmoz system and the tag that you have on your page. Is that what's happening in your situation?
I doubt it, but just in case you missed it, the explanation from On Page Report Card: If the canonical tag is pointing to a different URL, engines will not count this page as the reference resource and thus, it won't have an opportunity to rank. Make sure you're targeting the right page (if this isn't it, you can reset the target above) and then change the canonical tag to reference that URL.
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RE: Parasite Hosting
Hi Prunarevic. Can you clarify your question? I'm a bit confused about what you're asking. Typical parasite hosting is accomplished by hacking into a website or finding an openly editable portion of a website and adding content that redirects to your target page. It's not advisable, and if you break laws while hacking into someone's website it could be far more trouble than it'd ever be worth.
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RE: How Can I move a site higher in Google Places?
http://www.davidmihm.com/local-search-ranking-factors.shtml This is an excellent break down of the factors that go in to local search. David Mihm is also on the SEOmoz website so if you need an expert in the field you can contact him.
As you can see from the article there are at least 58 positive indicators and 11 negative indicators that all influence your localized ranks, being a combination of localized content and regular ranking factors. Hopefully by scanning through this article you'll be given several ideas of where you can improve your results.
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RE: IPhone usage by Continent
Hi Yozzer. Here's a tool you can use: http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201004-201104 From the drop downs below the chart you can select Mobile Browser or Mobile OS and then select different locations: Worldwide, Continent, or Country. In the legend at right you can also turn on or off different data represented in the chart. When you mouse over a data point within the chart you'll see the percentage of use for that Browser or OS. Hope this helps some.
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RE: Content Delivery Network
If the content of your site is location specific and geared toward your target audience in your target audience language with a target audience tld you shouldn't have to worry much about using a CDN, especially if the CDN helps speed up the user experience in all locations.
You can also use advertising that is city / neighborhood specific via Google AdWords and Facebook to help drive more initial traffic and possibly gain more links from other local sites.
If applicable, also add your site to location services such as Yelp, Google Local, etc.
All these things will help your target city rankings more so than CDN server location.
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RE: Photogallery and Robots.txt
Hi Joshua. Since the domain is so new, the tool is basically telling you that you don't have much "link juice" to go around, so you're easily going to have more links on page than Google will consider important. This is natural and as your new domain gains links from around the web you'll be fine. I noticed that www.rapturecamps.com is well established so sending a few more relevant links directly from there will help with the situation.
Also, this is a clever offer that you could post to surfcampinportugal.com as well:
Add a Link and Get Discount
Got your own website, blog, forum?
If you add a link to Rapture Camps website you will receive a discount for your next booking.
Please contact us for further information. -
RE: What SEO considerations for multiple languages on a single page?
Right. If both languages are to be that dominant it could justify the use of a subdomain for the English weighted portions, but it would take some clever coding to get it right.
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RE: I'm aware that spamming tools can lead to ruin..what do you use as a backlink strategy.
You're welcome and I'm glad we could all help. It can be a frustrating endeavor when things go wrong, you don't know why, and don't know who to ask. Hopefully the people here helped give you both insight and some peace of mind.
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RE: Links from Google Books
Great question Neil! Google uses optical character recognition (OCR, more specifically OCRopus) to convert visible print into search searchable text; hence, you're able to find terms in Google books via Google search. Link text is also recognizable due to the standard 'http' format, so even though you'd never be able to click it via an old book in the library (who knows what new ones will do!) Google Books is still able to recognize the link and treat it as such in the digital, Internet realm. Now, a website that is being mentioned in books has a high likelihood of having a robust backlink profile, but that notwithstanding, I'd bet that Google would give an high amount of trust to a link that makes it into its OCR database.
As for street view, that is pushing it! Who knows though, there's merit in giving a website online exposure for the offsite work they do via billboards, store fronts, etc. I think you and I both would love to know the people that could truly answer that one though, huh?
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RE: Google Analytics - April Search Report Data Gone For All Clients - Anyone Else Seeing This?
Ah. Thanks Dan, now I got the same results. This definitely appears to be a Google-based bug and is happening gloabally: http://www.analyticsevangelist.com/google-analytics/google-analytics-segmentation-data-missing-for-april-2011/
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RE: I'm aware that spamming tools can lead to ruin..what do you use as a backlink strategy.
Dunamis has given you some exceptional suggestions that really helped answer your reply to me in regards to creating calculators and link bait for people that may not directly produce clients but could easily give you all the backlinks you need. People that have grown up with the Internet are actually in their 30s now and beginning to become concerned about things applicable to raising a family: savings, retirement, new businesses, financial planning... These are all areas that you could tap into. Catching up on this thread and reading the various suggestions it seems to me like you have plenty to work with. Great answers from the MozVerse!
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RE: Google Analytics - April Search Report Data Gone For All Clients - Anyone Else Seeing This?
I'm still seeing April data so it could be a node in Google's cluster. Do you have this problem if you access GA via Adwords (if that's an option for you)? Or vice versa, accessing GA directly? It shouldn't make any sort of difference, but you never know.
Other suggestions: you've turned on a segment that doesn't have any visits, you have contradictory segmentation highlighted that equals no visits, you have a non existent comparison running... anything along those lines.
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RE: What SEO considerations for multiple languages on a single page?
Since it's native Chinese speakers I'd weight everything towards that priority, i.e. title tags begin in Chinese and then have their English translation. Obviously your going to run into problems with length there, but in other on page areas you should be fine. If it's only one page I'd also lean towards choosing zh as your language setting. One strategy that you could pursue however would be to code two separate, but duplicate pages, one in English, the other in Chinese that are on separate subdomains then as someone goes through the page they could study flash card style with translations being pulled from the other subdomain via a lightbox or something similar. It would be difficult and more work, but you'd also have more ability to really strengthen results, one for English and one for Chinese. Bilingual pages aren't my specialty though. I think a French / Canadian SEO could add some valuable input here as they have English and French as dual official language. Pinging someone from there could be useful, especially in a place like Montreal. Hopefully my above suggestion helps somewhat. Sorry I can't add more input about the science.
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RE: Anyone else get this in their Moz Account inbox?
Wait. Are you saying Sarah's ovations of my suaveness are insincere?!
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RE: Strange baclinks
Looks like a scraper program that either hacked or bought up old domains and is creating self-referential link farms. Your friend might have purchased a domain that was part of this network and now there are still links out there pointing to him. Dunno exactly. You could check out the ownership history in DomainTools.com
I've seen things like this before but not this exact scenario. Wacky!
Is your friend having trouble getting his blog to rank?
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RE: Google can read japanese or only alphabet ?
Google can read both so you're ok. There's always a risk in trying something new, but there's also a reward to being among the first to do something. Since you're in the company of Wikipedia and Google translate works rather fluidly you should be fine.
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RE: I'm aware that spamming tools can lead to ruin..what do you use as a backlink strategy.
I think your ignoring the human element in backlinking. You're not trying to copy what appears natural you're trying to create content and websites that are easy for people to link to naturally. There is such a huge range of sites in Google's index that you have to do some pretty aggressive SEO to get punished for what you do.
When one link from a reputable, high strength site can mean more than thousands of lower quality links (in both visits and rankings) there's definitely a benefit to developing relationships with people that add content to and maintain websites: reporters, bloggers, forum posters, etc. Of course they don't want to be manipulated any more than Google wants to be manipulated.
There's not a one size fits all strategy to backlinking just as there's not a one size fits all strategy to interacting with people.
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RE: Strange Keywords Google Webmaster Tools
With the addition of the forum Google is telling you that you're still a site about "coffee machines" but you're also a "forum" about "coffee machines". Still to reinforce the strength of your core content try linking back to pages on your original site from your forum. Also check for categorization issues in the sitemap and structure of the forum. You can also do goofy stuff like changing a thumbs up system to a "roasted beans" "raw beans" system. Things along those lines.
The main thing is that you're not seeing a reduction in rank like Dejan asked. If you're worried about advertisers missing out on your site being about coffee machines you can address this via the DoubleClick AdPlanner Publisher Center.
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RE: Isn't unfair that Keyword domain Exactly Match just overpowers every domain and page authority?
It's megaman with his old school yellow face...;) Or else MS Paint didn't have his closer skin colour.
One difference that's noticable is the title tag of the #1 site. It's only keyword is "brindes". Do a search for _"_brindes promocionais" and the SERPs change dramatically. With the amount of material you can offer in that vertical it seems like you'll have better success targeting the long tail, both in sales and visits. Still, per EGOL's recent discussion on title tags, you can likely market yourself better than brindes.com and get better clicks than them.
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RE: Best Way to check for duplicate pages
Does your situation benefit from having higher content pages that rank for your target keyword plus variables and long term additions? If so that might be an easier path to tread than something like page 1: kitten, page 2: kittens, page 3: young kittens...
If you're really looking into cranking out the content you're more along the lines of a eHow or other Demand Media property and then yes, you'd need a program to prevent duplication of both content created and keywords targeted. Still, even they get variable content by avoiding overly similar topics.
Finally, if header, footer, and side bar info is complicating things too drastically you could take steps on some pages to keep it unindexed via flash, image map, or by minimizing where applicable.
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RE: Kicking Ass When You Are Stuck At Position #2
Your Wikipedia comparison has worked for me. Figure out what they don't ever offer from their title tag and write against that. Another is the title tag loaded with info like, "Atlantis: Lat, Long, Current Temp, and Travel Details."
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RE: Best Way to check for duplicate pages
You can search for long quote, supposedly unique phrases in Google. If you find multiple pages from other domains you'll have located duplicate content. Duplicate content isn't a death knell though as Google understands that there are many sites out there which scrape and farm content. With enough authority you should outrank those sorts of sites and also be able to highlight your original content status in Google Webmaster tools.
If you have copyright status to your content you can always pursue DMCA removal requests.
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RE: Does it pay to change link text internally?
Ah. Sculpting in the sense that I'm familiar with is more so a function purely of PR strength. I think as long as you're not pushing the boundaries of contextual relevance and spam you'll be fine interlinking related silos. In the example I provided above, if they suddenly linked to a newly created page on their website about creating an online casino account it would probably be discounted and problematic. Same thing if they linked to an trusted neighborhood externally.
Here's an excellent recap of linking in general: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-illustrations-on-search-engines-valuation-of-links
and a highlight of linking to bad neighborhoods: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/more-on-nofollow-at-seomoz-and-how-bad-outbounds-can-impact-websites
If you're internal links are all fairly similar semantically you won't be an outlier.
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RE: Duplicate page content errors
Also, when you click in to the report you're able to export a CSV, "See the full list of issues by downloading your Crawl Diagnostics export file (.csv)." That will help you line things up pretty quickly.
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RE: Isn't unfair that Keyword domain Exactly Match just overpowers every domain and page authority?
Is it TUDOBEM.com? Kidding. I think since it's such a succinct keyword there is more weight being given to navigational searches in this instance. Plus, the domain name itself likely has a high value which makes it difficult to just purchase and rank from a spam point of view. Without specifics though it seems like you've found an outlier example that Google is weighting strongly for navigational reasons. Your best bet is to focus on other related keywords that drive visits and the competing domain doesn't rank. If there are advertising slots available on the top domain you may be able to target some of those as well, depending. Again, hard to say without a better idea on what terms and domains are at play.
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RE: Does it pay to change link text internally?
It's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. Sculpting is applicable for large scale sites that are having difficulty keeping pages indexed. If that's a problem you're facing you may have to do away with some contextual links in favor of passing as much link juice as possible through the entire network of your site.
On sites not facing indexation problems, contextual linking is another asset towards the enhancement of internal pages.
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RE: Isn't unfair that Keyword domain Exactly Match just overpowers every domain and page authority?
Are the results the same when searching via google.com and google.com.br? Since it's a one word keyword search, the incidence of domain navigation is going to be fairly high, i.e. people typing in KEYWORD or KEYWORD.com into Google search when they're trying to navigate to that site. Even if this isn't a popular site it's a common enough phenomenon--especially on such a direct keyword--that the exact domain matching may have more strength in this specific case.
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RE: I'm seeing that open site explorer seems to do a good job analysing backlinks
It sounds like you have the skill set to be effective with Open Site Explorer, spreadsheets, and management via your CMS. The graphs and reports you mention are often handy to agencies reporting to clients that want a simple report. Since you're plugged in to the pulse of your site you don't need the extra fluff. I did recommend Zoho in another post for someone seeking out project management software, but their online docs are top notch as well. Structuring your data and projects to be shared with your internal team and targeting completion date milestones should help with what you want to achieve.
No offense taken. And that's why I answered the ROI question as I did. If you're selling large scale real estate or heavy equipment one or two sales may be all you need for the year... it's a much different answer than if you're an affiliate for elastic wristbands. It sounds like you have a solid understanding of the business side of your business, so if you have cost effective solutions to doing what you want to do you should be fine.
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RE: Does it pay to change link text internally?
Variable link text applies to your internal website pages whether from your own site or externally; however, you'll be best served by giving your most competitive terms and most important pages one relevant link from your home page. On internal pages you can link to those same pages with less competitive and semantically related keywords, but avoid overly linking to one page multiple times per page. It's also useful for the links to be in context of the rest of your site. Halogen Software does a good job of this (http://www.halogensoftware.com/) Note how in their left-hand navigation they use a contextual link and then use a nofolllow for the "Find out more..." link to the same page.
I can't really speak to the worth applied in this effort. That depends on your own ROI. But a carefully crafted site will pay long term dividends down the road, even more so as it gains external links with similar keywords.
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RE: I'm seeing that open site explorer seems to do a good job analysing backlinks
Hi Joe. There's certainly many aspects to how you want to go about generating and gathering back links, but by in large you are seeing the basics. Raven Tools plugs into Basecamp which can be handy and tries to include a broader cross section of online marketing data to further help plan your campaigns and website marketing. Still, Open Site Explorer gives you all the raw data you need in managing your backlinks and really it's up to you how you want to approach it. You'll likely come across some sites that appear spammy but a competitor has a link there. You'll have to decide whether or not you want to try and acquire one there as well. Other times, you'll get widget, content, and vertical creation ideas from viewing where others--or your own site--have successfully gotten backlinks.
If you're putting a conscious effort towards acquiring genuine links you will have very little worry about appearing unnatural in Google, and emphasizing a broad source of backlinks will expose you to different market segments and your target audience (see Laura Lippay's: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-8step-seo-strategy-step-1-define-your-target-audience-and-their-needs).
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RE: What is the best method for segmenting HTML sitemaps?
You might benefit form a visualization program as well like Visio, Mindjet, or Mindmiester to figure out some of the more intricate details. Also JoelHit's suggestion of using Apple.com as an example is a good one. Even though their main sitemap is smaller than what you're describing there are some subtle takeaways when looking at it as an example (http://www.apple.com/sitemap/).
- All their top level categories are H2 tagged major categories of their site.
a. "Apple Info" emphasizes the brand
b. Mac, iPod, iPhone, iPad all emphasize product sales
c. iTunes, Downloads, Support emphasize sales and an ongoing customer relationship. - Precedence is given to the core aspects of their business via their sitemap.
a. As outlined above, this is elegant and functional.
Also, you'll certainly want to back up the work you do with an HTML sitemap with XML sitemaps for large scale sites and as Richard suggested register them all with Google Webmaster.
- All their top level categories are H2 tagged major categories of their site.
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RE: Video SERP question
Not to be overly obvious, but part of the answer to this question is that Google is using the metrics included in the XML feed (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80472#4) Things like, video:title, video:description, video:tag, video:category, etc. In addition Google is combining those with the authority and content of your website. Since your website is an authority on painting vs youtube (videos on anything and everything), there's likely an associated benefit to sending a user to website where they can find a collection of painting related material, not just videos. That's a benefit to the user.
The benefit to you is that you're receiving qualified web traffic that has an interest in painting and has a better chance of becoming a customer in the future. You may receive the same benefit from a user going to youtube and then being interested in your services, but they will certainly be another step away from that, either figuring out how to contact you via youtube or leaving youtube, going to your site, and then contacting you. For visitors outside of your area you could offer a starter kit or educational material for the DIY crowd. If they like your style of organization and view you as an authority on how to make painting projects a success they could conceivably become customers of that sort of material.
Your link from your home page to your video uses the text, "Recycle Paint" which further contributes towards ranking for that term, and the text around your link lines up semantically: take away, old paint. All the things Google would expect to see are present in your content and links. Basically, everything is organized and categorized very well on a website that is clearly an authority in regards to painting so it makes sense to be a beneficial ranking for both users and yourself. Well done!
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RE: Question about web site structure
Hi John. I'm surprised this question isn't considered answered yet as the group seems to touch on all the bases. Here's a recap:
- Richard Getz highlights the ability to add keywords via folders but cautions against adding too many folders (historically due to crawling issues).
- David Lenehan cautions against too many folders causing duplicate content issues and ungainly website architecture.
- Keri Morgret highlights the usefulness of folders in Analytics to help track specific portions of content. The moz also discusses this in their excellent post: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/a-powerful-analytics-tip-every-website-should-employ
"By segmenting out traffic to URLs that include /blog/ and those that include /ugc/ (YOUmoz), we can see when/where/how each section is rising or falling in traffic and contributing to the overall site's performance."
- Fatwallet cautions against spam negating benefits in either and emphasizes linking as driving more value regardless.
- Aaron Dicks recommends a CMS to give you strength and flexibility in organizing your content.
- While Pashmina reminds us of the usefulness of redirects when curtailing duplicate content or sending lost link strength to a page in greater need.
And finally since you were asking about domain\folder\page vs domain\page you're not going to run into subdomain issues. If a short folder category makes since in analytics it's definitely worth it. Just look at the URL above... we're in the 'q' folder. Hope that helps.
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RE: How do I know I have chosen the right keywords?
Hi Charles. It sounds like you're on the right track with your keyword research and have taken to heart conversion data indicating the strengths of 3 & 4 word phrases. If you do a precise match campaign on the very long phrase(s) you indicated, chances are you spend very little money in PPC. Further, you could create a landing page that is optimized for SEO as well as receiving PPC visits. A lot of times there's a benefit in segmenting these two, but for a client with little funds there likely won't be enough resources to make multiple pages. Still, you can acquire great tracking insights by carefully organizing your campaigns via the Google URL Builder: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55578
The phrase you suggest above can become the title tag of your newly created page.
Since you're also dealing with a brick and mortar company you may have success using highly targeted, location specific Facebook ads.
Once you show your client conversion data they'll see the point in spending advertising money to make more sales.
Best of luck!